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POP and POD

Points-of-difference (PODs) refer to aspects of a product offering that distinguish it from competitors, while points-of-parity (POPs) refer to similarities. When entering a new market or launching a new product, offerings need POPs to meet core customer needs but also PODs to attract customers away from competitors. There is a tradeoff between communicating POPs and PODs, as customers can only remember a few elements. Firms must strike a balance and highlight 1-2 PODs while emphasizing sufficient POPs to position the product in its category.

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Nupur Saurabh Arora
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488 views

POP and POD

Points-of-difference (PODs) refer to aspects of a product offering that distinguish it from competitors, while points-of-parity (POPs) refer to similarities. When entering a new market or launching a new product, offerings need POPs to meet core customer needs but also PODs to attract customers away from competitors. There is a tradeoff between communicating POPs and PODs, as customers can only remember a few elements. Firms must strike a balance and highlight 1-2 PODs while emphasizing sufficient POPs to position the product in its category.

Uploaded by

Nupur Saurabh Arora
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Definitions for points-of-difference (POD) and points-ofparity (POP)

Points-of-difference (POD) and points-of-parity (POP) are essentially opposite in nature, with the first referring to differences in the second referring to similarities. As a result, we can the following definitions for our purposes as students of marketing: Points-of-difference (POD)

The aspects of the product offering that are relatively distinct to the offerings of like competitors.

Points-of-parity (POP)

The aspects of the product offering that are largely similar to the offerings of like competitors.

Understanding PODs and POPs


Typically, a firm decides the positioning of a product when it is either: entering a new target market for the first time or launching a new product into an existing target market. In either case, the product will usually need to win market share from established competitors (which is referred to as selective demand). For the product to win market share, it requires existing consumers in the marketplace to change their purchasing behavior. That means that customers who currently buy a competitive product will need to trial the new offering and/or current non-consumers need to be activated to purchase in the product category for the first time (which is primary demand). To achieve this goal of changing established purchasing behavior, the firm has both meet the core need of product, as well as bring something new to the marketplace. The following diagram demonstrates this in visual terms. As you can see, the large circle in the middle of the diagram represents the core needs of the market (points-of-parity) and the smaller circles represent new features or benefits (points-of-difference). Therefore, the positioning of any new entrant needs to have many points-of-parity (that is, it must be seen to offer a relatively similar solution), but it needs to have something unique or different about it (points-of- difference). (For more information, please refer to the example section below.)

The POD POP Trade Off


One of the challenges for a firm launching a new product offering is to the extent that they differentiate the product. As outlined in the positioning section of this marketing study guide, one of the purposes of positioning is to simplify the offering in the minds of the consumer. As we know, marketing communication is a very competitive world and it is difficult to communicate many messages about a product, particularly low-involvement one. Therefore, as it is necessary to simplify the message, firms need be careful about overindulging in points of difference. As shown in the following diagram, there is a distinct trade-off between the ability of the firm to communicate points-of-parity and points-of-difference. This is because consumers are likely to only remember a few elements about the product. .Ideally, an organization would like to communicate everything about all of their products, but that is just not practical given the interests of the consumer and the vast array of marketing messages being sent out. Therefore, firms need to strike an appropriate balance and to position the product within the product category as having sufficient points-of-parity, while highlighting one or two points-ofdifference.

Unique Selling Proposition (USP)


The concept of a unique selling proposition (USP) has become quite popular in terminology in recent years. Essentially what this refers to is points-of-difference and you can use the terms interchangeably if required. A point-of-difference is basically what is different about the firms product, as compared to most competitive offers. The same meaning is applied to the term unique selling proposition; that is, what is unique (that is, different) about the firms offer.

What to emphasize POD or POP?


Continuing on from the discussion on the previous section, while firms do need to balance their emphasis between points-of-parity (POP) and points-of-differentiation (POD) there are occasions when a firm should more heavily emphasize one of these elements. The following table outlines the circumstances when a greater emphasis is required.

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